@Ebalosus
“…Or just use the Crystal Heart.”
Sorry, won’t do any good. The Crystal Heart is the Crystal Empire’s Defense system; if anypony were to remove it then the Crystal Empire will be left vunerable.
And we certainly don’t want (Equestrian) history to repeat itself, now do we?
I kinda wish they’d be used more, actually. I think it would have been more interesting to have Twilight start blasting everything with them to scientifically figure out what kind of magic they’re using, I like her better in the first two seasons for going “I must study thing to find out why it does thing.” Hopefully S4 continutes this trend, Castlemaneia seemed to hint that it would pick that back up.
@HighRollerHydra
If they have to, but considering that that would likely make the Everfree Forest go haywire again, they probably want to keep their usage of the Elements to a minimum.
I bet this is going to be one of those things where during the season finale a disembodied voice from either Celestia or Discord berates Twilight for being silly because “Didn’t you know? The power of friendship is already inside you!” and then they can use the rainbow beam without the elements. Kinda like the lightsaber in Starchaser: Legend of Orin.
@Spiritus Arcane
For Nightmare Moon and Discord, Princess Celestia had already tried other options, and they hadn’t worked. She’d failed to talk down or outfight Luna and the two of them didn’t pull the Elements off of the Tree on a lark. They both knew that resorting to the Elements in the first place was an act of desperation.
Celestia went to the Elements against those two opponents because she already knew that she didn’t have anything else that would work. In the case of Chrysalis, Princess Celestia didn’t know that Shining Armor and Cadance could pull off that boosted attack, so she didn’t know that it was an option. At the time, they weren’t in a position to try it, either.
Against Sombra, even in a worst case scenario, Celestia and Luna could still defeat him without using the Elements, although she really should have let Luna just deal with him instead of treating the situation like a pop quiz.
So, yeah, they were always only used when Celestia had already exhausted all of the other viable options that she knew of. Sometimes they were the only entries on the list, but she never used them when she even thought that she had another option.
